Light, soft, cinnamon sponges with apple, golden delicious crumble, cinnamon buttercream, and even more crumble. Apple crumble cupcakes, perfect for Autumn.
WELCOME TO SEPTEMBER! Even though Autumn doesn’t technically start until late September, I still say its Autumn now. Therefore, APPLE CRUMBLE CUPCAKES are now a thing on my blog.
I posted the cake version of this last year, apple crumble cake, and its always been a hit. The cake was a beautiful marriage of soft, light sponge, with cinnamon, and the delicious baked apple. These cupcakes? The PERFECT smaller version.
Apples
When baking these, I was worried that the apple in the cupcakes wouldn’t be baked through enough, so I made the pieces a little smaller than the cake version, and it was ideal. The apple still has a ‘bite’ so that its not just mush, and it helps make sure the cupcakes bake through properly.
Coating the apple in a little brown sugar, reduces the tartness of the apple slightly, and gives it a wonderfully delicious flavour. Adding that with the cinnamon, is deeeeeelightful.
I do find it important to use cooking apples when baking with them because you still want the apple to have some texture, and they are just perfect for it. If you use eating apples, they may go a little soft and mushy after baking.
I have recently started to love baked fruit.. because originally, I used to hate cooked fruit. Something about the texture would really get to me, but honestly? These cupcakes and my apple crumble cake have changed that. Baked enough to make the apple soft enough to eat, but not so mushy that the cupcake can’t even bake.
Cupcakes
In complete honesty, the cupcake mixture is literally the cake mixture halved. The cake version worked so well, that I didn’t want to mess with it. However, because of this, it did produce more that my usual 12 cupcake batches. You can try and reduce it if you like, but I like the extra cupcakes… who doesn’t?!
- Butter – As always, for a sponge I use either room temperature unsalted butter in block form, or I use a baking spread. Both work really well for cake sponges.
- Sugar – For this recipe I used light brown soft sugar because it suits the flavour and idea of the apples and cinnamon perfectly, but you can use regular caster sugar or golden caster sugar if you prefer
- Eggs – Again, I tend to use medium eggs all of the time now
- Flour – It’s important to use self raising flour in the mixture to get a good rise and texture to your cupcakes
- Flavour – I add a little ground cinnamon to the cake mix. The cupcakes have the perfect amount of cinnamon for me, but you can add some more if you wished. The extra sugar can be a worry for some, but it helps the apple bake perfectly.
Crumble
The cupcakes are topped with crumble mixture which gives the cupcakes an amazing taste as well as texture. Then, topped with a lightly hinted cinnamon and vanilla buttercream, and even more crumble goodness makes these cupcakes utterly irresistible and completely moreish!
- Butter – For the crumble I find it best to use actual butter compared to a baking spread
- Sugar – I use caster sugar by habit, but you can use light brown sugar to match with the cupcakes if you fancied
- Flour – plain flour is best here, but using self raising isn’t the end of the world
Decoration
For the frosting I used a simple American buttercream frosting which was flavoured with ground cinnamon and vanilla. I wanted a little sweetness from the vanilla to come through, but I also though it may be nice to have a slightly cinnamon based frosting to go with the cupcake mix quite well.
I use block unsalted butter for buttercream ONLY… you don’t want to use a baking spread for this bit. Beat it like crazy, add in the icing sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and mix until light and fluffy. I pipe this onto my cupcakes, then sprinkle on some leftover baked crumble (which I baked on a tray at 180ºc for about 15-20 minutes) and sprinkles, but both of these are optional.
Tips & Tricks
- I recommend using Iced Jems baking cups and a 2D closed star piping tip to decorate
- When buying the apples, buy above the 250g as thats the chopped and peeled weight. You need to go for about 400g worth unpeeled, to make sure that its enough
- Some oven temperatures can vary even if you set it to the ‘correct temperature’. You can tell if a cake is well and truly done by testing them with a skewer, and seeing if it comes out clean. HOWEVER, you need to also listen to the cake, if its still making a crackling/bubbling sound then its not quite done. Keep baking till that sound goes away!
- I really would recommend using COOKING apples for this rather than regular eating apples because of the length of time the cake is baking for. If you used regular apples, there is a chance they’d turn to mush, and then the cake wouldn’t bake well either. The lovely bright green cooking apples are the ones you’re after!
- You could also use a ready made crumble mix if you like as well as it does save time, but you’ll still need to bake it on top of the cake in the same way, and bake the spare in the same way as well!
- This cake will last in a container for up to 3 days at room temp
Enjoy your Autumn everyone, and these cupcakes as well! Enjoy!
Apple Crumble Cupcakes!
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Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients
- 250 g cooking apples (peeled + chopped weight)
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 150 g light brown sugar (+25g extra)
- 150 g self raising flour
- 3 medium eggs
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Crumble Ingredients
- 120 g plain flour
- 60 g caster sugar
- 60 g unsalted butter
Buttercream Ingredients
- 200 g unsalted butter (room temp)
- 400 g icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Prep
-
Preheat your oven to 180ºc/160ºfan and line a 12 hole muffin tray with large cupcake cases/muffin cases or 12 baking cups.
-
Peel and core the apples, cube the apples into about 1cm (small) pieces.
-
Put the apples into a bowl, and cover with the 25g of light brown sugar. Mix it up so all the apple pieces are covered and leave to the side.
Crumble
-
Make the crumble mixture. Rub together the sugar, flour and butter until the mixture resembles bread crumbs, leave to the side for now.
Cupcakes
-
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the flour, eggs, and cinnamon and beat until smooth. Fold through the apple mixture and spoon into your cupcake cases. Because of the apple, you will probably get more than 12 out of the batch.
-
Sprinkle on a layer of the crumble mixture (only about 1/2cm worth per cupcake) and then bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until baked through!
-
Once baked, transfer to a rack to cool completely. After they’re out of the oven, sprinkle some of the spare crumble mixture onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until its lightly coloured (180ºc). Leave the crumble mixture to cool.
Buttercream
-
Beat the butter for a few minutes until really light and supple. Add in the icing sugar 1/3 at a time and beat fully after each incorporation.
-
Add in the cinnamon, vanilla and 1-2tbsps of boiling water and beat for about 5 minutes until really light and fluffy.
Topping
-
Using a 2D closed star piping tip, pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes. Sprinkle on some of the cooked crumble mixture and maybe an extra sprinkle of cinnamon, and some sprinkles and enjoy!
Notes
- I recommend using Iced Jems baking cups and a 2D closed star piping tip to decorate!
- When buying the apples, buy above the 250g as thats the chopped and peeled weight. You need to go for about 400g worth unpeeled, to make sure that its enough!
- Some oven temperatures can vary even if you set it to the ‘correct temperature’. You can tell if a cake is well and truly done by testing them with a skewer, and seeing if it comes out clean. HOWEVER, you need to also listen to the cake, if its still making a crackling/bubbling sound then its not quite done. Keep baking till that sound goes away!
- I reeeeally would recommend using COOKING apples for this rather than regular eating apples because of the length of time the cake is baking for. If you used regular apples, there is a chance they’d turn to mush, and then the cake wouldn’t bake well either. The lovely bright green cooking apples are the ones you’re after!
- You could also use a ready made crumble mix if you like as well as it does save time, but you’ll still need to bake it on top of the cake in the same way, and bake the spare in the same way as well!
- This cake will last in an airtight container for up to 3 days!
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